


Aloe

by hide_if_you_ken



Series: Hidekane Week 2016 [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Child Abuse, Fluff, Hidekane Week, Hidekane Week 2016, M/M, Protectiveness, bittersweetness, hidekane, lots of triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7849396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hide_if_you_ken/pseuds/hide_if_you_ken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 2 ––– “He was my voice” / *Protecting Each Other* / Band AU</p><p>Hide arrives at school extra early one day to find Kaneki in a very peculiar situation. Hide questions him and Kaneki has no choice but to answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aloe

**Author's Note:**

> I think we've established by now my inability to hold back on the angst. There are a lot of triggers so read at your own risk. I forgot to say this yesterday but these are totally unedited and unbetaed. I won't edit those till the end of the week since I write them and post them each day. It is also one of the shorter ones so I'm very sorry. Please try to enjoy regardless!
> 
> Update: just edited this, I have no beta feel free to point out any mistakes I missed, I would appreciate it greatly. ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Hide had always been the one to protect Kaneki. From his aunt, from his peers, from the world.

He had always protected him. It had always been that way.

So why? Why did Kaneki break himself over and over _and over_ again to protect Hide now? It was supposed to be the other way round. Hide wasn't supposed to one day find Kaneki scrubbing his desk at 5 O'clock in the morning.

It always confused him, the reason they targeted Kaneki when he was nice to everyone and never bugged anyone.

It had always been him.

He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream at his classmates, he wanted to scream at the world. He wanted to scream at Kaneki. He had taken it all onto his shoulders and he'd borne so much for far too long.

"Kaneki... Why.. How long.. How bad...?" Hide had so many questions, so many things to say. So many apologies. They all choked him and he couldn't quite remember how -or why- to breathe anymore.

Kaneki fucking _smiled_.

"Someone like you doesn't deserve to live that kind of life." Kaneki said simply, as if the answer was obvious.

He thought he _deserved_ misery.

Hide couldn't stop the tears that fell down his cheeks, he couldn't extinguish the burning anger in his chest, he couldn't stop his heart from breaking in half at the look of genuine confusion on Kaneki's face.

Hide had seriously underestimated how bad the world had broken Kaneki, even if he was a mere seventeen year old on the cusp of turning eighteen.

"How long?" Hide forced himself to say, through the painful grinding of his teeth, through the blurry veil of his tears.

"I don't see why that matters." Kaneki tried to argue but Hide fixed him with a look and repeated.

"How fucking long, Kaneki?"

Kaneki flinched and tried to make himself small under Hide's glare. Hide could see the confusion and guilt in Kaneki's expression and he hated it. He _hated_ the world that forced Kaneki into his twisted beliefs.

"I was always the target Hide." Kaneki tried to reason. "It's just that when you transferred they got a little bit distracted with you." He could see the tears prickling at Kaneki's eyes. "I couldn't just leave you to them, you were so bright and cheerful, so warm, I didn't want them to take that away from you," Kaneki struggled to phrase the words.

"And you think it's okay if it's you that's losing happiness?" Hide questioned incredulously. Ever since he moved into town Kaneki had been taking all the suffering behind the scenes while Hide played hero.

"Hide, I swear it's ok, I was used to it long before I knew you, long before I knew any of them." Kaneki's eyes carried so much melancholy and anguish that Hide physically felt it.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Hide said bewildered. He had always assumed that the reasons why Kaneki was this way were the bullying, his father's death, and later his aunt. He had never heard about anything before that.

"I already know that I'm a bad child and that I deserve everything painful in the world. Stop making it seem like it should be any other way." Kaneki's words would've been so vague to anyone else but Hide always had the ability to connect the dots so very fast and he hoped, for Kaneki's sake -and for his own sake- that he'd made a mistake this time around.

"Your mom she.." Hide couldn't get the words out of his mouth. "Kaneki how was your mother like?" He prayed to every god he knew of that he was wrong.

"She was a very kind person that never hurt anyone, she loved me a lot." Hide watched with a heavy heart and watering eyes as Kaneki's hand moved to his chin.

"She took out the stress on you." He whispered mostly to himself incredulously. "She abused you and you took it," Hide's tone was so full of horror and disgust.

He could practically hear Kaneki's sanity crumbling under the weight of Hide's words. "I'm sorry." Kaneki whispered but Hide heard nothing through the swirling thoughts in his mind.

"From a very young age she hammered all her stupid beliefs into you." He continued, his voice distant.

Kaneki's apologies kept coming, spilling out of his trembling lips like waterfalls.

"She killed every ounce of self appreciation and self worth you've ever had." Hide's hands shook as he swayed.

Kaneki's eyes were spilling tears as well.

"She killed her own son, she killed Kaneki Ken and turned him into.. _this_!" Hide motioned with his hands to the boy before him and felt himself become aware of what he'd just spewed impulsively just as the room grew suddenly and unnaturally quiet. "Kaneki I- what I meant was- it's not-" he looked up at Kaneki and again,

He was fucking _smiling_.

The guilt crushed him so thoroughly he felt as if he were thrown into a vacuum with no suit or oxygen.

He was just like _them_.

He hurt him. He hurt Kaneki so irrevocably that even the little light that twinkled in Kaneki's eyes when he was around Hide was snuffed out without a trace of it ever existing.

He ruined everything, Kaneki, _them_.

"I'm sorry you had to put up with _this_ for so long." Kaneki's satisfaction made him nauseous. It was like Kaneki expected something like that. Waited for it. Like it was what was supposed to happen. As if it was some predestined event that was inevitable.

Like what Hide did was _right_.

He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream at himself, he wanted to scream at the world. He wanted to scream at Kaneki. He had taken it all onto his shoulders and he'd borne so much for far too long.

He just stared at the boy before him. Broken so bad it was hard to even tell what was a fragment and what was regular dust.

"Kaneki please I'm so, so sorry. Please." Hide was kneeling in front of Kaneki, his hands gripping Kaneki's waist. "Come back, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it, not the way it sounded. I'm so so sorry. Oh my god." He sobbed.

Kaneki blinked at him in shock before Hide felt bony fingers in his fluffy blonde hair. "Why are you crying?" Kaneki sounded so confused it hurt.

"Because I hurt you." Hide gripped Kaneki's hand in his.

"What's wrong with hurting someone like me, it's only normal right?" He tilted his head to the side.

"No, no Kaneki, you deserve everything good in this world so please, please forgive me." Hide was desperate to make Kaneki understand.

"But there's nothing to for-" Hide swiftly got up and silenced him with a finger against his lips before he can argue further.

"I'm sorry Kaneki." He willed himself to stare into the bottomless pits of molten steel that were Kaneki's eyes.

"Please forgive me."

"Hide, it hurts so much." Kaneki gave up, that façade was worth nothing with Hide.

"I know, I'm so sorry." Hide hugged him tight.

"Mom said that it's okay to be hurt, that you would still be able to feel happy despite that if you were a kind person. I don't feel happy, does that mean I'm a bad child?" He looked up at Hide innocently.

Hide shook his head vehemently. "No Kaneki, you are a wonderful person, you are too selfless, you need to think about yourself more. You need to tell others when you're hurting, call for help. Talk to me Kaneki." Hide's voice was stripped down to a desperate whisper.

"I don't want my heart to feel so tight that I suffocate anymore Hide. Even if others had to hurt instead of me." Kaneki said, tentatively, as if he was breaking this sacred rule of the universe.

"It's your right to not want to feel sad." He answered, his voice so tender the words were like a caress.

"I didn't want mom to hit me when I asked for food while she gave my aunt all the money she asked for without any objections. I didn't want mom to leave me alone for countless hours at home, I was so _lonely_ Hide." His voice was a hoarse whisper.

"It's your right to want your mother to care for you Kaneki." Hide's gentle tone was consistent.

"Even if it meant that my aunt would suffer instead?" Kaneki questioned.

"Even then." Hide didn't know how he didn't break down crying still.

"Even if it meant that I'd break all of mother's ideals?"

"Even then." Hide couldn't hold himself back from moving closer to embrace Kaneki, tight.

"Do I deserve to wish for happiness?" Kaneki whispered against Hide's shoulder.

"You do." Gently. "It's the right of every creature."

"Even if it meant others got hurt instead?" Kaneki was shaking.

"Even then." Hide repeated.

"But I don't want _you_ to get hurt." Kaneki emphasized the you with so much emotion it made Hide's chest swell with bittersweet warmth.

"Does it hurt, when you think of me getting hurt?" Hide pulled back slightly to meet Kaneki's eyes.

"Yes, it feels like a thousand tiny glass shards are being driven into my heart and it gets hard to breathe." He puts his hands on his chest, over his heart.

Hide takes his hands and puts them flat against his own chest. "That's exactly how I feel now. Because you're hurting. Because I couldn't stop it and because I couldn't be there for you."

Kaneki was bewildered. "What does that mean?" Kaneki whispered, not sure of anything anymore.

"It means I love you so much that our pain is one and the same." Hide caressed Kaneki's hands against his heart.

He could feel his heartbeat quicken and he knew Kaneki could as well.

"Then, because I love you so much," Kaneki's realization was so strong that Hide felt it. "I hurt when you hurt."

Hide nodded. "That's why Kaneki, stop this." He motioned to the desk. To Kaneki, to the whole classroom.

"But they'll hurt you if I do." Kaneki was panicking.

"I already am hurting when they hurt you." He connected so many dots, too many things made sense too fast. The way Kaneki flinched when Hide touched his shoulder that one day he had 'club activities' and couldn't walk back home with Hide.

"Then, how do we stop this?" Kaneki was so confused and so scared it killed Hide.

"We fight." Hide interlaced their fingers. "Even if we had no one else on our side, it'll be us against the world, and _we'll win_."

"But I'm not strong." Kaneki tried to reason.

"You are. You are so smart and so strong willed that you can do anything." Hide smiled brightly.

"You are also so smart it scares me sometimes. To add to that, you're also pretty physically strong." The curve of Kaneki's mouth was slowly widening in a grin.

"We can do this." Hide whispered out loud.

"We really can Hide, we'll win. We will laugh at the whole world for trying to put us down. Because we won't take it and we'll fight."  Kaneki was so excited Hide's heart squeezed.

They believed in each other, and that was all that mattered to the both of them at that moment.

"It won't be just you or just me protecting anymore." Hide was so happy.

"We'll protect each other, always have each other's backs." Kaneki was happy as well, Hide could tell.

"It's a promise." He hooked his pinky with Kaneki's.

Kaneki was the one to lean in and press their lips together to seal their oath.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it, nothing would make me happier than your thoughts so please tell me your opinions. They'll really help me improve myself. It would be great if you could leave a kudo as well, though just the fact that you clicked on this and read it through the end means the world to me. If you want to contact me about anything at all please do so on my tumblr: MilknCiel.tumblr.com  
> Have a great day/night and a happy Hidekane week!


End file.
